“They sent government officials in to investigate,” she says, dropping her head in shame. “But that was Tuesday morning, it was too late. As soon as the news broke, we knew what had happened. We knew. They knew it wasn’t ready for testing. We told them. We pleaded, but they wanted to fast track it. It wasn’t ready. You have to believe me, we never wanted this. We wanted to end addiction, that’s all. This was never our intention. Ever!”
“Noah, Felecia,” Norwood screams at the top of his lungs. “Run! They’re here!”
“Go, go!” I shout, ushering the five of them out of the room, trying to get my head in the game while attempting to wrap it around everything we’ve just been told. The answers only pose more questions, but at least we have some answers. I’m not sure they’re the ones we wanted, but then again, I don’t know what those answers would be. Are we even fighting zombies, or are these vampires? Or simply addicts willing to kill for their next fix? What does that make us?
In a weird way, the truth is sort of comforting. It wasn’t a biochemical weapon. We weren’t attacked. This wasn’t meant to be malicious, it was meant to cure an epidemic. When all it did was start a new one. One that made the voluntary disease we call addiction seem like a mild inconvenience.
Kristen’s brother made a choice. He weighed his options each and every time he injected something into his arm, whether it was heroin, or a highly experimental drug he thought might fix him. Those were his decisions to make. We all deal with life in different ways. But those were decisions he had the freedom to make.
The vampire zombie addicts about to come spilling out of the tunnel, they didn’t get to decide. This was forced upon them. And now the many get to suffer for the mistakes of the few. They just destroyed the world, trying to rid it of a voluntarily contracted disease that didn’t actually exist.
“Follow him,” I yell, corralling them onto the catwalk.
“Wait,” Kristen’s mom shouts in a panic, skidding to a halt in the intersection of death. “Kiwi, who has Kiwi?”
“We’re not stopping for a fruit,” Felecia screams, pushing her along.
“No, no, not the fruit. The mouse. The first one infected. He might hold the answers. His cage, it’s on the table by the window. We need Kiwi.”
“Go,” I call over my shoulder, racing back into the conference room. “I’ll catch up! Felecia get her out of here!”
I can’t believe I’m risking my life for a mouse. Maxwell is never going to let me hear the end of this. If the scientists aren’t worth dying over, you know damn well how she’s going to feel about a lab rat. But he’s had this infectious disease longer than any of us.
Kristen’s mom is right, his DNA may very well hold the answers we’re looking for. He didn’t ask to be injected with this poison, he’s no different than us. I can’t let him die in vain because that means Felecia, Caylee and I are next. If that little vampire vermin might be able to save us, to save the world, I will do whatever it takes to get him out of here alive.
Kiwi! There he is. By the window, just like she said. And oh my god is that a long way down. Were they seriously going to repel from the window, on lab coats? The things we do to survive.
I burst out of the room moving too fast to stop myself in time and crash into the wall across the hallway. I just need to get through the intersection before they come piling out of the corridor that–
Too late. They’re here. How in the hell am I supposed to fight them off with a little plastic cage in my hand? Is shaken baby syndrome a problem for mice? Because it’s about to be.
What was I thinking having them leave me behind? I can’t do this on my own. Not while holding Kiwi. If it were just the first two through the doorway, maybe, but with the three that popped out after, I don’t stand a chance.
They haven’t even noticed me yet, drawn to the line of scientists being led along the narrow platform, ripe for the picking.
The first one through the tunnel vanishes, darting right past me in his pursuit. He disappears from sight, making his way onto the catwalk, but comes flying back through the intersection, crashing into his partners in crime.
Felecia swings her katana, relieving his neck of the added weight of his head. She didn’t leave me. We’re Nolecia dammit, if we go down, we go down together, swinging, because that’s what warriors do.
I jump into the fray, beheading one from behind while smashing someone’s face into the floor with a Norwood style curb stomp. Sorry Kiwi, you’re gonna have to sit this one out.
I slide his cage across the floor towards the suspension bridge, hoping Mrs. Abbot takes the hint and grabs him because I’m a little busy here.
A flying leg tackle takes down the next one through the doorway. His knees buckle and crunch the second my shoulder makes contact.
Someone spots me on the floor and decides to take that as an invitation. His overly eager leap meets my backhanded swing, leaving his head rolling in one direction, his body in the other.
They just keep coming. I raise my leg behind me and mule kick another entrant in our battle royale, sending him crashing into two more coming up behind him. We need to get out of here, there are zombies as far as I can see, an endless line of them, pouring out of the tunnel.
Kristen’s mom’s got the mouse, I can see her timidly making her way across the catwalk, easily catching up with the others who appear to be taking baby steps. I get it, I’m all of a sudden not too fond of heights either, but do they not know what’s going on back here? Time isn’t exactly a luxury we have right now.
An explosion from somewhere beside us draws my attention. Is this place starting to blow? I knew those alarms meant nothing good.
Oh fuck, it’s worse than an explosion. The bear!
The bear just blasted his way through the door, bending the metal pipes Norwood wove through the handle.
The infected beast lets out a horrendous roar, loud enough to drown out every curse word playing on a loop in my head. Yep, that’s about every one I know. Time to go.
Felecia dives from the crowded hallway onto the platform which appears to be swaying a lot more than it was before. I go to leap over the pile of mostly headless corpses but don’t make it in time. It turns out Grizzly bears, even dead ones, are really fucking fast.
I drop to my stomach as he pounces. The chick I was about to behead apparently didn’t think it was necessary. His jaw crushes her petite frame in half, midair, sending a stream of blood splattering the ceiling.
I’m on my feet before the bear’s massive body has squashed what’s left of the zombie girl, who it turns out might actually be a vampire.
“Felecia, run! I’m right behind you!”
With a quick glance over her shoulder, she takes off. Whoa, okay, this thing isn’t the best to run on. Looks like this is going to be a low speed chase. One where you do not look down, already made that mistake. That is a long fall and there are frenzied sharks down there waiting to rip us to shreds, and I’m quite certain they smell blood in the water.
It looks like the others are across, Kristen’s mom is almost there. How long has she been walking, fifteen seconds, maybe twenty? Okay, I can do that. Fifteen seconds, we got this. Just as long as–
Son of a bitch, here they come. And they apparently did not get the walking only memo.
The bridge shakes wildly, swaying back and forth as the steel frame creaks and groans. I can barely move, it’s like trying to run across one of those wood and rope bridges on the playscape by my old house. All I can do is hang onto the railings for dear life as they race towards us, half of them toppling over the edge and crashing into the turbines below.
I tuck the sword into its sheath, needing both hands just to hold me up. We’re not even halfway there. How the fuck are we going to get across with them shaking the damn thing?
The cable beside me snaps.
There’s too much weight. Too much motion. It wasn’t meant to sustain this kind of stress.
Another cable snaps, whipping
one of the zom-pires. He goes sailing over the edge, falling three stories into a mosh pit of his brethren. The rest don’t care or so much as notice, they’re crawling over each other to get to us. Snapping cables left and right. Pushing each other over the side. We’re not gonna make it. I try to take a step but it’s rocking uncontrollably, I can’t even move.
The Grizzly’s eye zeroes in on me. As if he can smell my fear, the twenty or so bodies between us become irrelevant. He charges, trampling the mob of human carcasses that carpet the steel grating. How much do Grizzly bears weigh? Whatever it is, it’s too much.
The cables snap. We’re going down.
The bridge collapses.
CHAPTER 36
It’s too far of a fall. Even if we did manage to survive, the floor is crawling with dead things that want to eat us, and pretty soon, a bear.
“Leesh, the rafters!”
I hop onto the railings, taking it a step past the rat incident with both feet on the top rung as cables snap all around us.
This is stupid, so stupid! But what else are we supposed to do?
I latch onto the metal beams that crisscross the ceiling, dangling three stories high as the catwalk crashes to the floor, clanging off turbines and generators in an explosion of metal.
“Are you okay?” I holler in a panic, trying to look over my shoulder to see her but my crossbeam is pointed in the wrong direction.
“You called me Leesh,” she swoons from somewhere behind me. “So you know how you made me strap a sheath to my back even though I said I didn’t need one because I’m a warrior and warrior’s never let go of their swords? Thank you honey snooks,” she whines in a sing songy voice. “But now what? Just monkey bar it the rest of the way?”
“We’re gonna have to. Can you make it?” I cough, trying not to breathe in the dust falling from the rafters in clumps as big as the rats we trampled.
“Yeah, as long as I don’t look down. I swear to god, Noah, I was never scared of heights before today.”
“You too? Because I wasn’t either, until this stupid thing started swaying. In fact, I’m pretty sure I joined you and Caylee’s peepee club.”
“I’m offended… that you could think all it takes is a little tinkle in your undies to be inducted. No no no, it takes a whole stream, I mean full on bladder release. This club isn’t for amateurs who– uh oh.”
“Uh oh? What uh oh? Why’d you uh oh?”
“I just got turned around. There’s a huge ventilation shaft about fifteen feet in front of us. It cuts right across the middle of the room. We can’t make it.”
I crane my neck over my shoulder and yep, she’s right, it cuts right through the rafters, eye level with us.
“Do you think we can slice it open and then crawl through?”
“I don’t know if our swords can cut through metal.” I look back the way we came, nothing blocking our path in that direction. “What if we go back that way?”
“Then what? If you even so much as suggest shimmying down that lab coat rope, we are officially over Noah Britton. Do you hear me? We are no longer a couple.”
“What about the other hallway, where the bear was?” I ask, looking down at the devastation below, even though I know better. “I can safely say he’s not down the hallway anymore. Maybe it loops around or something. There’s gotta be a main entrance.”
“Okay, we need to hurry though, this is killing my hands,” she groans, while turning back around. It’s not easy hanging onto these flat pieces of metal, they’re not exactly made for comfort or mobility. “Oh shit, Noah, monkey bar zombie! Behind you!”
What? Monkey bar zombie?
I turn around using a diagonal brace beam and– she is not exaggerating. What in the actual fuck, how did he get up here? He’s swinging from one beam to the next like he’s freakin’ Tarzan in camouflage, spittle flying every time he grabs onto the next bar. There’s no one-hand-in-front-of-the-other shimmying like we’re doing, this is the equivalent of running, except dangling!
He’s coming in too fast, I don’t even have time to devise a plan. I don’t know what I’d do if I did. Son of a bitch, here he comes!
Monkey Bar Master lets go, throwing himself at me, mouth open, arms outstretched, looking to feed the addiction he never asked to have. It was forced on him. This isn’t the path he chose. But I can’t think about that. Right now, it’s him or me and I can’t look at him like a victim.
All sympathy goes out the window.
I raise my legs, swinging them out in front of me, pulling myself up on the dusty beams. He wasn’t counting on me to move. And even if he was, it’s too late to reverse direction now that he’s airborne.
My feet slam into his chest, knocking him backwards. He sees it coming, I can tell by the look in his eyes. That expression makes everything so much worse. He’s still in there. Some part of him knows what’s going on, but the addiction wins out.
He can’t fight it, no matter how hard he tries. It’s in his bloodstream, his brain, it’s taken over. His body is nothing more than a host, possessed by something more powerful than we as a species have ever faced.
He reaches for me, trying to cling on, to grab hold of something. But the blow to the chest was just too much to bounce back from. His fingers brush against my legs but can’t hold on.
He plummets to his demise. I hear him splatter off a turbine but I’m not making the mistake of looking down again because if I do, I’ll probably barf and I want to keep those MREs right where they are, in my stomach, that is of course until I have to poop five minutes into the helicopter flight.
Helicopter flight, we’ve gotta get out of here. They can’t wait forever and we must be approaching the ten minute mark by now. Whatever’s left of Sonny Valley, and I assure you there’s a lot of them, are racing up the winding mountain road right now. If they’re not here already, then they’re too close for comfort.
I can’t bring myself to swing from the rafters like monkey bars but I certainly quicken my hand over hand shimmying.
“Hey Noah, after hearing what Kristen’s mom said, when we get to England, they’re gonna wanna run tests on us, aren’t they? I don’t wanna be an experiment. When we get there, we have to disappear.”
“I know,” I call over my shoulder, finding my next handhold. “There’s probably gonna be an influx of Americans, Canadians too, Mexicans, all of South America, hell, the whole world. We should be able to blend in, even if they group us by country. We’ll find a way, even if that means building a cabin in the woods and living off the land.”
“Somehow, that seems easy compared to what we’ve been through. Hear me out, but, I’m kinda relieved to hear you say that.”
“The cabin part?”
“I’m worried I won’t be able to be part of society again. After everything, normal seems… I’m scared. It’s all I’ve wanted this whole time, for everything to go back to normal, but I don’t know if I can handle normal anymore. It all seems so, pointless, and mundane. How am I supposed to, I don’t know, sit through a class, or, go shopping, work? It’s all so trivial. We’ve been killing, surviving by any means necessary, for days now. Is it possible to just… turn it off?”
“Honestly, no, I don’t think there’s any going back for us. Not to that life we knew. I don’t know what it’s gonna be like over there, but, you, me, cabin, I can’t wait.”
“Ooooh, can we build a loft? I’ve always wanted to sleep in a log cabin loft. Can I decorate? Oh my gosh, HGTV, Log Cabin Living, my everything. No creepy moose heads though,” she grunts, swinging between rafter beams. “Do they have moose in England? We have to find a dinosaur fossil, like, a real one.”
“We’re gonna be in New York. You think the Natural History museum might have a styracosaurus skull we can smuggle overseas?”
“Oh my god I love you. I wasn’t gonna ask but how awesome would that be? We can put it right over the fireplace. A real fireplace, it’s gonna be so romantic. And that is officially the girliest thing I’
ve said in days. Now I think I’m gonna gag. Don’t tell anyone I said that.”
“Our secret,” I say, swinging through the doorway and landing on both feet, again. Look at me, I’m getting good at this. “Can we make the fireplace out of river rocks?”
“Like it could be made of anything else? Bricks can kiss my ass.”
“Is that like a consolation prize?” I ask, catching her as she swings into the doorway, not that she needs me too, but I do anyway. “The bricks don’t get used so you let them kiss that perfect butt of yours?”
“Mmmhmm. Jealous?”
“Extremely.”
She smiles with that flirtatious look in her mesmerizing eyes. It fades as quickly as it appeared the second her gaze travels over my shoulder. Oh shit, she’s probably seeing what I’m seeing. Not all of them made it onto the catwalk.
A gaggle of vampire zombies, vambies, come pouring out of the conference room, trampling each other as they all try to squeeze through the doorway at once. Behind me, in the other direction, where the bear came from, their feet slam off the tiles in a frenzy. Which leaves us with one option.
The tunnel.
We break into a sprint, our heavy breaths echoing off the walls of the constricted corridor. This is the epitome of a horror movie, down to the flickering lights above us. Would it have killed them to add a few windows to this dank hallway? I feel like I’m in a mineshaft heading towards the center of the earth. I’m just saying, a window every ten feet or so would remind me that I am not, in fact, wandering into a cave with no other exit. We have a cabin to build, and dinosaur bones to abscond, river rocks to collect and firewood to scavenge.
The steadily growing groans behind us build to a deafening roar as the tunnel fills. They crash off the walls, crushing one another in a frantic stampede. I can make out the sound of bones crunching as they get trampled. It echoes until the next gruesome pop overpowers it.
We’re losing them, their breaths grow more distant with every stride. There’s light, the tunnel’s opening up. We made it through the dam. The slight curvature made it seem like it’d go on forever or we’d be stuck running in circles, but we burst out of the cave-like corridor into a room full of windows. The natural sunlight makes the random body parts and bloody limbs seem so out of place, like they belong back in the tunnel.
Blood Type Infected (Book 4): Betrayal of Hope Page 24
